Hi Everyone, it seems Waze already has a new layout called Rewire that can be enabled from config. Unfortunately you need to or rebuild the apk yourself or have root and modify the following file:

/data/data/com.waze/preferences

and Add or Modify these configs to look like these:
Rewire.Legacy app navigation: 0
Rewire.Rewire main menu: 1
Rewire.Hamburger button enabled: 1
Rewire.Search zero state enabled: 1
Rewire.Search autocomplete enabled: 1
Rewire.Start state enabled: 1

once done your Waze should look like this:
http://pijulius.com/julius/images/waze.png

Please let me remove these bars. It ruins horizontal mode!

Please at least hide the "Where to?" panel line in landscape mode. You have access to "Where to?" function once you click "My Waze" panel line, so the feature is only one click away. This would go a long way to help our frustration.

Absolutely useless in landscape mode in its current iteration. Users have been complaining about this for more than a year - clearly, Waze gives zero f*cks about what users want. It's sad to see such a great app ruined by clueless developers.

Covers the map

Allow removing my Waze as well without picking a destination

I would like to be able to hide the where to? Search area and the my waze location spot as well.

Have stopped using it as well for the same reason. It makes the app totally useless when the screen is horizontal. Since google for no reason killed their standalone nav option in google maps, waze seemed like a good alternative, but this makes it unusable. Not surprised waze and google don't actually care, but figured I'd comment as well.

I have an Android header unit. These two items take up a third of the screen making the map view next to useless (I like to glance at it to get an impression of what is ahead). Looking for alternative until this is sorted

Totally agree with this comment, I'll continue to use Sygic as my go to everyday monitoring app as long as MyWaze & Destinations take up a third of the screen.

Please add settings for view type (portable or landscape) thanks of this we can hide this search bar on main screen because it cover 40% of map view in landscape view.

No. The search bar does not "automatically hides after some time when driving without navigation.", no matter how many times you repeat that.

It may be designed to do that, but it isn't doing it, and your insistence that it does is completely dismissing the experience of your customers.

I simply cannot use Waze because of this issue.

Trips that I know well but are a couple of hours long do not all8w adequate time for the bars to "automatically hide" - they never do.

Why have you taken something that was perfectly fine, lovely, and well-functioning and over-engineered, under-thought, and under-tested it into a useless chunk of code that is taking up space on my phone?

Listen to your users.

Neither the "where to" bar nor the My Waze bar are neccesary or useful. At LEAST give us the option for them to always be hidden.

It’s so annoying! Why it just cannot be only map with Alerts on and traffic or police or any stuff important while driving on voice message and timer alart on screen! Please fix it it so annoying and if we want let us pull up the search box and type the destination and that’s it

I wish to be able to hide the “my Waze” bar as it obscures a part of the map, it serves no purpose being there.

Turn the where to bar into an action button or a drop down screen when just having waze running without active navigation, as this bar takes up a lot of room.

Any news here? With Android Auto Waze is totally screwed by this search bar not hiding.

Please implement this change. In my cars screen I have now lost between one third and half of the map now.

The two bars in landscape mode hide HALF of the screen! Please add an option to hide the bars!

Just want to view the map whilst driving. The two bars take up half the screen.

Need option to remove, in landscape mode it makes the map unusable.